


The Life and The Blood: They Called Her Inanna

by JohnlockAndATardis



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Mythology - Freeform, Mythos Building, Other, Sumerian Mythology - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-12
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-10-08 15:08:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17388665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JohnlockAndATardis/pseuds/JohnlockAndATardis
Summary: The Dean wasn't always the Dean. Before that, she was something else, something once wonderful and beautiful turned to darkness when she was robbed of love.-An exploration into the mythology of the Dean as the Goddess of Life and Blood. Also known as the one where gods have multiple names, the Seven Deadly Sins were once the children of an angry Death Goddess, and Laura Hollis still saves the day.





	The Life and The Blood: They Called Her Inanna

Once upon a time, as all mortal stories begin, there was a woman who was not a woman alone but a Goddess. Inanna they called her, and in the Old Tongue that Time has forgotten her name meant blood, for she was the Life and she was the Blood. Inanna was the Mother of all things that lived and roamed the Earth, and her heart was pure and good, for she was filled with love for all the mortal things to which she had brought life. Love, Inanna knew, was sacrifice, for it was with her very own blood that the waters of life had been crafted, from which her Children were born, most favorite among them being the race of men who loved, above all else, beauty. For a time lovely things abounded and the world was filled with song and dance, and Inanna was content with her life, and her children prospered, and all within her realm was good.

 

But it came to be that one day as Inanna was walking the earthly planes where her mortal children resided that she came upon Hastur, the Shepherd of Souls who attended to the mortal men and guided them upon the path of righteousness and splendor. If Inanna was the Mother than it might be said that Hastur was to these mortal men the Father, a watchful guardian who bid his time in the shadows, stepping forth only when the Children had strayed so far as to demand it be so. Inanna had in that moment come upon him as he reunited a father with his child, who had by accident been taken from him. In that moment Inanna’s heart, which had previously only loved her precious creations, grew and became golden, trembling with their shared fondness. Her love thus was expanded, and came to be most for Hastur, who saw the beauty of Inanna and was in an instant besotted.

 

They two souls were wed beneath the light of the sun on the first day of what would become the new year, and it seemed for a time that all should be good and glorious. Their two hearts were joined as one and they loved as no living creature before had ever thought possible, as even the gods of that time had never seen, and in some hearts jealousy was spurned. But the couple was blind to the darkness which had begun to take root in others less of light than themselves, and for a time there was joy unparalleled. To Hastur Inanna bore children of divine status, sons and daughters and other creatures to rule the lesser realms of the mortal world. It came to pass then that Inanna was known as a goddess of all fertile things, and in times of struggle the Children of the Earth would but pray to her, and if such an act was done with devotion in their hearts then they knew they surely would be rewarded. Temples were erected to honor the beloved goddess, fires lit in her name at which there was no shortage of worship. Many centuries were lived as such in peace.

 

But joy could not be eternal, not even for Inanna, for dark things were stirring in the world below. Ereshkigal, who was the sister of Inanna and whose heart had been born from the same star, watched her sister from the underworld, Kur, which was her unfortunate home. Envy welled inside of her body, for her life had been unhappy and her worshipers were few, coming to her not with the adoration Inanna was afforded but with the fear of that great and lasting darkness which was her kingdom. She took the souls of the Dead as her pledges, but was unsatisfied with their eternal forms, locked away in memories of bliss such as she had never experienced. Anger blossomed inside of Ereshkigal, wearing a darkness into her shadowed heart. In her despair she gave birth to monstrous children – Sorrow, Suffering, Wrath, Fury, and other such creatures, and though she could not rise through the Gates of Kur without summons children bore their father’s blood, and were free to the world. Slowly shadows crept into the minds of men, thoughts of greed, of desire, polluting all that was once pure and good.

 

Then at last came the day in which Inanna suffered her first true loss. For though she had seen her children live and die as mortal creatures must, she had taken her sorrows and watered the Earth with them that it might become more bountiful and more lovely things could grow, more life blossoming from loss. But the Death which came to her next was of one who was so close as a mortal might be to a goddess such as she. Her most devoted dedicate, a young priestess by the name of Lilitu, had been stolen away from her temple and her blood spilled to the Earth by Shukaletdua whom she had rejected. In a rage of pain Inanna brought her punishment fierce and fast upon the gardener, but when she returned to Lilitu’s body she found herself too late, for Lilitu’s soul had been carried to the world below where Inanna was not permitted. Succumbed to her sorrows Inanna then wept, her tears becoming the river Ashtoreth, and she vowed that no dying soul would be permitted to Ereshkigal until her priestess was returned to her, refusing passage to Ereshkigal’s daughter, Errashanna, carrier of souls.

 

Enraged that her sister would deny her, Ereshkigal sent forth her consort, Nergal, who was born beneath the joining of darkness and light and so thus could travel freely between worlds unimpeded even by Inanna. She demanded that her sister be brought to her gates that she might imprison her as such until Inanna would consent to Errashanna’s journeys. But Nergal was a brash and cruel god himself, and his time in the underworld had fed the darkness already born to him. When Hastur stepped forth to protect his wife, Nergal slew him with the very same sword the Shepherd of Souls had once used to banish the Seven Temptations, Ereshkigal’s most terrible of offspring. So it came to be that the first god would die, and as Nergal dragged his soul to Kur he became known by a new title – God of War. For war indeed would be unleashed. Without Hastur the evils that had licked eagerly at humanity grasped into their hearts and turned many men to darkness. Death and despair became the nature of Inanna’s realm, and she refused to cede any soul to Ereshkigal. She flooded the lands between the mortal realm and Kur that even Nergal could not rise from the darkness again. Enraged to be so denied Ereshkigal called upon Enki, God of Knowledge, and they two called forth Inanna to the Underworld on the promise of the return of He whom she held dear above all others.

 

But when she arrived at the seventh gate to the underworld, Enki was waiting for her with the body not of Hastur whom she loved most, but of Lilitu for whom she had first betrayed her sister. As Inanna knelt before the body of her most beloved priestess Ereshkigal arose from the final gate and, taking up the same sword that had wrought Hastur’s doom, tore Inanna’s immortal soul from its trans-celestial form and condemned it to the body of Lilitu. From Inanna both Enki and Ereshkigal took fragments of power, and these pieces of herself were to be confined into four talismans. Of the four, three were as such: the book which was used to bind her body, the sword that had stolen her soul, and a locket which had been soaked in the waters of the Ashtoreth that had once been Inanna’s tears and bound her to the mortal coil. Last was the most terrible of prices, Inanna’s own heart. It was taken from her body before her very eyes and broken, scattered as ashes into the winds of the world where its last remnants of magic found a human host to carry it through the centuries. The last tears Inanna’s true body shed became the goddess Nanaya, who was the only memory of the goodness Inanna had once embodied.

 

Broken, the goddess turned inward to her despair, no longer Inanna, Mother of Men but a diminished creature set forth in the world to be known by many names. First she was Ishtar, then Astarte, then Lilith, until at last mortal knowledge of her seemed to fall away entirely. She was as a non-entity, forgotten by those who had once worshipped her, and in her loneliness and rage imprisoned she grew to know the shadows and forsake the sun. What remained of Lilitu’s physical heart in the body she now hatefully possessed grew cold from the despair that the forsaken goddess knew best, love turning to hatred to only be echoed shallowly as time went on. For six thousand years she endured as such, sharpening the pain she had known, hardening it into a knife of hatred with which she intended to take her vengeance upon those who had wronged her.

 

Then at last there came to be the day a stupid, sweet girl with more heart than Inanna had ever remembered herself possessing came into her world, and Inanna knew hatred for her, for she was robbed of her high priestess, her body, and for a time of her plans. But Inanna was patient and evolved, playing her hand, thinking that she surely would win. Until at last she felt the beating of a heart not only the girls, and she thought herself secured as she held what had once been her own in her hands. Yet it was in that final moment she felt herself robbed, and yet all was returned to her with a last embrace, a reminder of the first tragic lesson Inanna ever knew:

 

Love, Inanna thought as she fell into the darkness and through this found the light, will have its sacrifices.


End file.
